KINGSTON — Trend guru Gerald Celente has won an early round in a battle to stop copycat blogs sites that have appropriated his name and likeness on postings.

Heather Yakin

KINGSTON — Trend guru Gerald Celente has won an early round in a battle to stop copycat blogs sites that have appropriated his name and likeness on postings.A federal judge has ordered the blogs shuttered pending the case's outcome.Celente is a widely known and well-regarded trend forecaster; he's the founder and director of The Trends Research Institute and publisher of its newsletter, The Trends Journal. He's a frequent guest commentator in a wide variety of news media, and his position is that the counterfeit blogs could irreparably damage his reputation.“Hopefully, (the suit) will dissuade others from using Mr. Celente's name in an internet doman name,” said Celente's lawyer, Dyan Finguerra-DuCharme of Pryor Cashman LLP in Manhattan. “It shows that he will protect his name and his mark.”On Nov. 7, Celente filed suit against blog owners and Google, Inc. over a series of blogs that incorporate Celente's name in their web addresses. Finguerra-DuCharme said if the case against Google succeeds, it could set a precedent holding internet hosting services – Google hosts Blogger – accountable for misconduct by users when the hosts take no action for policy violations.The suit charges that the operators are falsely representing the blogs as if they are Celente's work – borne out by comments addressed to Celente on some postings – in order to drive ad clicks that generate revenue for the blog owners. In addition, some of the blogs contain offensive content.“The contents of the infringing blogs appear, inter alia, calculated to harm Mr. Celente by suggesting that Mr. Celente is the source of certain offensive political and social contents, including anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic statements,” the lawsuit states. “Most recently, the infringing blogs have gone as far as making statements about the Vatican being terrorists, Islamic extremism and recent Libyan assassinations, leaving Mr. Celente fearing for his safety given the current political climate.”Celente is suing the blog operators, identified as David Chekroun of Toronto and John Does 1-10, on various charges of unfair competition, violation of the AntiCybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and unjust enrichment under federal law, as well as violations of privacy and publicity rights and deceptive acts and practices under New York law. He's suing Google under two unfair competition claims essentially charging that Google allowed the sham blogs to impersonate Celente, against their own policies that ban impersonation.Google took no position on the request for the injunction. “Google does takethe position that Plaintiffs have no legal claim against Google, and intends to move to dismiss,” the companies lawyers, Dennis Hopkins and Timothy Alger of Manhattan-based Perkins Coie wrote in a letter to the court.Google has until Jan. 9 to answer the complaint against it.